05.30.11: dinner (steak dinner from the broiler)

These lovely pictures were snapped by E on our first weekend in Stamford. We were still surrounded by boxes but we decided we needed a break from packing tape and our piles of treasured shit and return to the center of our New York power- we visited our beloved Fairway. [Ed.–one, if not both of us visited Fairway every day over the Memorial Day weekend, including Friday.]

Briefly (I think E is planning a far more detailed breakdown for a later date), the food fanatics behind Manhattan’s best supermarket, Fairway (131st St and 12th Ave), have opened a branch right here in our new little corner of the metro world in Stamford on Canal St in from what I can tell from Google Maps was a vacant lot. But I digress.

The chef's tasting plate: bacon and steak. Ron Swanson would be mollified until dinner.

The store is pretty fantastic, but I’ll reserve itemized judgement for later. I will say that they are very good about stationing a diverse multitude of happy professionals set on distributing tiny foodstuffs to entice buyers into purchasing their wares… err… LOTS OF FREE SAMPLES. That weekend, three gents in cowboy hats were handing out pieces of steak, headlining a very decent sale price for Memorial Day. I asked them where their ranches were and they admitted that, despite their headgear, they were from some farm conglomerate representing sites all over the midwest, dispelling my romantic notion of where beef comes from. I still bought a big crazy porterhouse, though. Because Alton Brown did a show on porterhouses recently. He’s ending Good Eats, you know. But I don’t want to talk about that.

Beauty shot.

With a new apartment comes the not-terribly-fun task of adapting to the capabilities, peccadilloes and general temperament of your new oven/range (although now we have a dishwasher for the first time ever- appliance WIN). The hotbox is definitely a step back in time for us, as this gas unit lacks the digital controls and high power of our beloved firebox we had to leave behind. What our new guy does have is one of those old-school broiler pan drawers, which I arbitrarily decided would do the job of a high-power restaurant-quality salamander. Naive? Well, it did the job you see above in four minutes per side, flat. The steak was about half an inch from the flames, but it don’t matter how you get where your goin’, so long as you get there. I aged the steak on the top shelf of my fridge, just sitting out on some paper towels for three days before I did the deed and I let it come to room temperature on the counter covered with lots of salt for an hour before lighting her up. The salt really drew quite a bit of moisture to the surface, I mean you hear it on the cooking shows all the time, but this thing really got a good sweat on.

As you can see, I made some bacon to go with the meal. Why? Because moving is hard and it’s what Ron Swanson would do. So, when standing on the verge of a great change, exhausted with mountains of work ahead, pause, find your happy place, by some delicious fresh ingredients while you’re there, and, why not pick up some bacon too? Until next time, friends- cook on!